In music, many values are portrayed through the artist’s lyrics. Across all genres, including rap, pop, and country, common themes of trust and honesty are shown. Drake’s hit “Trust Issues” is about trust in relationships because he believes people may judging him based off his money. He quotes, “All I care about is money and the city that I’m from”, stating many only care about what he has, not caring about who he is as a person. In Tao Te Ching’s poem #17 the author writes about his feelings on trust. He quotes, “Without fundamental trust there is no trust at all” (Tao Te Ching 17). Similar to Drake’s song, the author is explaining that without trust a relationship can not grow. As it is for many, it takes me time to fully open up and trust someone. In these two examples the author and singer are addressing one must be open to getting to a trustworthy level in a relationship in order for the relationship to work, which I agree with. In the country hit, “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood, Carrie sings about how her ex was not honest and cheated on her. She sings, “Oh, maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats”. In relation to the same poem in Tao Te Ching’s Daodejing intro, the poem quotes, “be careful in valuing words” (Tao Te Ching 17). Cheating goes directly along with the poem as they both touch on the value of keeping your word (in the songs case, staying loyal). These values in songs express societies “norms” as they have been shown through the media (writing and music).
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